


Jurassic Dreams

by Kat2107



Series: Dreamspinners [3]
Category: Inception (2010), Jurassic World (2015), The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Nobody is prepared, Red Harvest is a little shit, What if Josh dreams dinosaurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 17:39:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13816161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat2107/pseuds/Kat2107
Summary: “Hey, Sam. Why haven’t we run the forgers against each other yet?” Goodnight called over and like one man, everybody turned to Faraday.He caught Red’s eye and shrugged.“Well, nobody asked?”





	Jurassic Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eridani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eridani/gifts).



> Just a little fun in the "One Bullet Away" verse. The Magnificent 7 and dreamshare. For my most beloved Beta and friend Eridani.  
> Thank you. For basically everything ;)  
> And sorry, this took so long. Could definitely use more raptors.
> 
>  
> 
> Biggest thanks to Decoy who acted as my secret stand-in beta.

Vasquez shot up from his recliner and instantly curled in on himself trying to protect his soft middle although it was already much too late.

“Kid learned his lesson,” Billy commented, elbows casually resting on his drawn up knees, with a nod towards Red’s still sleeping form.

“I don’t think he’ll ever be caught unawares by V’s mind again.”

A small bunch of bank notes landed in Josh’s outstretched hand accompanied by Goodnight’s disgruntled mumbling. “I can’t believe you bet against him.”

“Goodnight, I sleep with that man. I know exactly what he’s good at.” Faraday grinned, catching the tail end of Billy shaking his head. “And I know Red a little.”

With that, he pushed off the medical gurney someone had pushed against the wall in Sam’s lab and made his way towards the men clustered around the PASIV in the middle of the room.

“He knows exactly what Red does,” Billy mumbled at his back, more neutrally relaxed than anybody else who had already been bested by Red Harvest in his little game.

“Then why doesn’t _he_ try and catch him.”

Faraday’s fingers dug into Vasquez’s hair to anchor him in the here and now, Goodnight’s acidic response barely registering over Vasquez’s slowing breaths.

“Ok?” he asked and only when Vasquez nodded and let Faraday gently plug the needle from his arm did Faraday allow himself to grin. “Scary little motherfucker, isn’t he?”

Whatever Vasquez had wanted to say got cut off by Sam and Red both shifting awake on their recliners.

No words were spoken, Sam just shook his head and his protegé grinned at him, unhooking himself with the energy of the young and unmurdered to hop off the recliner.

“Hey, Sam. Why haven’t we run the forgers against each other yet?” Goodnight called over and like one man, everybody turned to Faraday.

He caught Red’s eye and shrugged.

“Well, nobody asked?”

 

***

 

The rules of the game were very simple. Someone built a dream, setting and background unknown to the participants.

Then Red and whoever wanted to try their luck against him went under.

Whoever died first lost.

It was actually a carbon copy of the first dream test the army ran their candidates through. Irony of ironies. After all, they were here because _someone_ had gloriously fucked up Red Harvest’s training and created a beautiful monster on the way.

Faraday still wasn’t convinced that hadn’t been yet another experiment by the army. Just one of those things they did and when they failed to understand it, handed it off to be someone else’s problem.

Red Harvest grinned at him from his recliner like the smug little shit he was, quite the opposite of a problem. Because _he_ knew exactly what was going on. And he expected a win.

 

Faraday hit the thick forest floor with the solid thud of booted feet. He didn’t need the rich, thick smell of tropical forest to know that Vasquez had dropped them into one of his go-to scenarios.

Dense emerald green stretched to every side, vines twining over trees and the pockmarked topography of overgrown stones.

A short distance away, stripes of sunlight filtered through the trees from a wide grassy clearing, sparkling over a rivulet of water between the trees.

Rules said that the challenger got a headstart. Faraday grinned.

Unfair.

The others had tried to deal with the impossible. Vasquez, he knew, had tried to force his ultra-militarized mind to trigger a paradox.

Looking around, he drew a deep breath.

Believe, not doubt, moved mountains.

 

***

 

Claws clacked softly over small boulders strewn between knee-high grass. Click-clack. Tick-tock. I’m coming for you.

Faraday was all too aware of four people watching them from a floating, sky-colored emporium. Referee’s box, Vasquez called it. He didn’t like when Faraday called it ‘the bleachers’.

Not like there was anything to referee. Two people trying to kill each other. One of them invisible and the other….

Charlie raised her head and gave a soft, warning trill.

Faraday turned around but Blue had already shifted direction, moving through the underbrush with a predator’s inborn grace.

She, too, had noticed. A minute shift in the grass around them announcing a presence, unseen, yet….

Lifting her head, Blue scented with open maw and closed eyes.

Faraday started the motorbike.

 

They flew over the open grassland and up the hill, clawed feet hitting the ground with the relentless thud-thud of heartbeats, their heads held low against the wind rushing over their backs and swallowing their hungry shrieks and cooling the touch of the sun.

Muscles shifted under skin as they weaved their way around each other, Blue around the center of the pack, always right beside the bike, and the others at her back.

 

Faraday broke through the treeline first, dumped the bike and ran the last steps to cover.

Then Blue.

Their harsh panting breaths broke the silence between the trees. Discord breaking into Paradise. If anything moved around them, they didn’t hear.

But that was alright, raptors were not made to hear.

 

Green, firs. The dark mold of rotting leaves and the crystal clarity of spring water. Mineral coolness of stone and in between...a faint hint of…horses. The fine dust of clay. A touch of creamy softness mellowing abrasive edges. Milk in coffee.

Faraday turned towards the north and started walking.

Blue followed, head lowered to the ground, then high in the air as she fought to catch that scent again, just this whiff off something not from here. Not from them. Not the musk of leathery skin and claws and blood dripping from razor-sharp teeth. Not the bitterness of smoke and whiskey.

Faraday stopped along with Blue, raising his hand in warning and at the back of her head, the raptor felt the weight of unrelenting gazes.

 

Something moved in the woods to their right. A faint touch on leaves.

Charlie, Delta and Echo fanned out. Stepping away, following _it_ in different directions.

Faraday raised his rifle…

The knife glittered in a stray sunbeam, a heavy grunt, the overwhelming smell of blood. The rifle hitting the ground.

 

Blue swiped her claw at nothing, hitting flesh, blood spraying on green. Copper everywhere as she jumped forward, snapping her jaw… nothing.

A mirage flickered. Heavy steps as a shadow vanished behind a tree.

She shrieked. Fear. Anticipation. Hunger, storming off after the bright trail, the sound of heavy breathing.

The other three followed on her heels, trampling over Faraday’s body on the ground.

 

She didn’t need to see. Her hunger knew the way. Over the stream and the boulders up the hill.

Her prey was fast. Not fast enough. His blood called to her.

And the hunt… not minutes. Heartbeats.

She slammed into the failing flicker of a barely kept disguise, ramming Red Harvest to the ground.

Faraday shifted while falling and rolling out of the way of his other raptor projections, giving Red a moment to understand what happened.

“Never trust your eyes.”

 

***

 

He woke with a laugh on his lips and the image of the younger forger’s shocked eyes seamlessly translating to reality.

Faraday fell back on the lounge chair with a huff, just breathing, slowing down his own heartbeat.

Everybody else lay still sleeping around them, Vasquez’s head propped against Faraday’s thigh, his hand curled over the needle in Faraday’s arm as if he wanted to protect the injection site from violent motions.

Joshua reached out and brushed over his hair, not looking at Red Harvest, giving him room to breathe.

Red Harvest had nothing of it. “You turned yourself into a _raptor?”_

And that was the exact moment, Sam awoke.

Faraday laughed. “You turn yourself invisible, you got no room to judge!”

Vasquez stirred and somewhere behind them, Faraday heard Goody and Billy move.

Josh plucked the needle from his arm and Vasquez’s, dropping a careless kiss on his boyfriend’s hand.

“I just had to get you to show yourself.”

They stared at each other over the PASIV and Faraday very well saw the minuscule twitch around Red Harvest’s mouth.

Sam stood to their right, stretching his body with creaking bones. “You know what’s worse? Now I have two forgers that do impossible things with no explanation. _Thank you,_ Faraday!”

“Why? I did nothing wrong. I just outsmarted him. It’s what forgers do.”

“Not Red. He just goes invisible against all laws of dreamshare.”

“No!” Faraday drew a deep breath and glared at Goodnight’s words. “That’s not what he does. Red Harvest is not a Forger because he can trick his subconscious into sidestepping paradox. That’s just a thing he does because no one ever taught him.otherwise.”

He ran a hand through his hair, looking for confirmation from Red but the little shit just shrugged.

“A forger shows you what you want to see. Your expectations reflected back at you and then twisted to his own purposes. A forger first and foremost _reads_ people. You con people into believing what you do. Be that by absolute accuracy or by wish fulfillment or by exploiting their weaknesses.”

He gesticulated around their pointmen and Sam. “All of you are set in ways that promote security. Vasquez’s mind is a minefield but if a trigger is weightless the mine won’t go off. You don’t see him you can’t react. Red knows that!

Sam. You like things orderly, well sorted, you are used to being the master of your dreams. Your mind is reality based. And if someone doesn’t follow that pattern… you’re out of your depth.

Goodnight. You rely on distance and on Billy. Billy is too used to watch the distance for Goodnight.” Somewhere in there lay a trail of thought...Joshua just had to collect everything to bring it together to form a cohesive conclusion. Which was really simple, actually: “Our marks don’t know any of that because _we_ abuse their weaknesses. Him, though?” He pointed at Red Harvest. “That little asshole has marked all of you down to the t. Because he’s a forger and that’s a survival skill and he couldn’t not do it if he tried. And he used all of that against you. And the invis thing? That’s him conning his own mind into thinking that shit is normal!”

Sam rubbed his tired old-man eyes and shook his head. “So what, you accepted his impossible and raised him?”

Red Harvest actually had the audacity to smirk and yeah...Faraday already knew he’d have to spend nights teaching him that one.

He spread his hands and smiled, the kind of smile that had given his COs ulcers.

“Listen, Sam. I just happen to like dinosaurs. This is not impossible. Did you know that velociraptors have…” No. Not like this. Two pairs of eyes stared at him in non-comprehension and he felt Goodnight judging the back of his head. “What if I need to create someone’s dog because they always whispered their secrets into his fur as kids? Dinosaurs are just my kind of dogs. And he…” he pointed at Red Harvest. “...definitely didn’t see that one coming! So. I win!”

 

He held out his hands to a silently judging Vasquez and Sam in equal measures. “Pay up!”

 

Vasquez stared at him with hooded eyes, just him, an arm thrown over Faraday’s knee in a proprietary gesture and his fingers caressing along the seam of Faraday’s jeans.

His whisper was not meant to carry farther than Faraday’s ears so Faraday caught it with a kiss. “What would you have done if I’d put you in the desert?”

Another reason Faraday was a better forger than Red? (Yet)

“You wouldn’t have,” he grinned back against Vasquez’s lips. “You wanted him to lose.”

He was a shameless cheat.


End file.
